Although I had met Sarah Sands before I didn't know Mary Beard (a left of centre Cambridge Don) or Tim Smit from the Eden Project. Attending the dinner beforehand was very useful in that it enabled us all to build a little bit of a rapport and size each other up. It was clear from the outset that Tim and I might well have a major disagreement on the programme....

I had a good spat with Tim Smit on global warming. I expressed some scepticism about man made global warming, which both Tim and Jonathan seemed rather surprised by. He asserted that not a single scientist disagreed with the fact that global warming is entirely man made.

What a fucking liar! Of all of the big, fat, stinking lies about the climate debate that an alarmist could come out with, that is a fucking doozy. How the hell did that little shit possibly think that he could get away with that?

Perhaps we should start compiling a list of the scientists who do not believe that? We could start with those who signed the deeply under-reported Manhattan Declaration but, in reality, I think that you would be hard-pressed to find any scientist who was truly believed that "global warming is entirely man made".

I took issue with that and quoted the example of the UN report, for which many dissenting scientists had lost their jobs and were considered almost heretical. Tim had to agree I was right. I also layed into Greenpeace and others for refusing to debate the issue because they regard the argument as already won. Jonathan then asked the audience if they shared my scepticism and rather to all our surprise found that half of them did. Greenpeace clearly haven't won the argument if the Ottery St Mary audience is anything to go by.

Good for Iain for refusing to take that piece of shit at face value. One thing...

... how the hell did Iain resist the urge to punch Smit in the face and then repeatedly hoof him in the knackers with an old-fashioned, lead-weighted diving boot, eh?

11 comments:

Anonymous
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It might have been better if you had listened to Any Questions and not taken Iain Dale's reporting of it at face value. Tim Smit did not assert that not a single scientist disagreed with the fact that global warming is entirely man made.

Tim Smit: "There is not one single scientist, not one scientist, who has written a scientific paper over the last thirty years, not one, not one scientist that was not funded by the petrochemical industry."

Having re-read the Tim Smit quote I posted (although it is verbatim) I see that it doesn't actually express what I think Tim Smit meant to say (which is apparent from the previous exchange with Iain Dale). Smit's point is that there are scientists who disagree with the "scientific consensus" that climate change is man made but that all these scientists are compromised by all being funded by the petrochemical industry. Smit then asked Dale to name one scientist who had published a piece against AGW in a reputable scientific journal that had not been funded by the petrochemical industry.

I don't whether there are such scientists but Iain Dale wasn't able to name one.

Tim Smit then agreed with an Iain Dale point that it was wrong and misguided of the scientific establishment to bully fellow scientists who spoke out against the AGW consensus.

Tim came out with an absolute shocker as part of his U-turn - he was quite happy for the AGW conceit to go ahead as long as it made the clay, I mean the people change their behaviour "for the environment".

Oh, and Tim should have realised how many of the scientists pushing AGW have grants linked to maintaining the deceit...

"Smit then asked Dale to name one scientist who had published a piece against AGW in a reputable scientific journal that had not been funded by the petrochemical industry.

I don't whether there are such scientists but Iain Dale wasn't able to name one."

Well, of course, the obvious ones are McIntyre and McKitrick. Totally independent, and have finally (last week) completely disproven the hockey-stick, having shot down Wahl and Amman's defence.

And then you have Christopher Monckton (3rd Viscount Brenchley), who published a comprehensive attack on the climate sensitivity forcing coefficient on the APS forum two weeks ago. There are quite a lot, actually.

But I would take a huge issue with the concept that everyone paid by Shell lies. Science does not recognise this concept. Politics does. What was being proposed was a political method of 'proving' AGW. This is the real tragedy of 'climate science', that they have thrown truth away and now deal in innuendo and falsehoods.

AnonSo do "reputable" scientists not receive any funding then? By your logic such funding would disqualify their opinion as much it does for those scientists on the other side of the argument. Or is it now dependent on where the funding comes from? (clearly governments have rather a lot of tax revenue riding on "green" action in response to MMGW, why would they want to fund any scientists who didn't fall in line, any more than the "nasty" oil companies)

My personal opinion on the subject of AGW veers towards the sceptical stance and certainly to the Bjorn Lomborg view that dealing with the consequences of AGW (if it exists) makes more sense than devoting huge resources to countering it.

However, I believe that Iain Dale and DK do no favours to their argument by misrepresenting the arguments of their opponents.